


Heavenly

by nouseforaname



Series: Recovery Mode [11]
Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25873306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nouseforaname/pseuds/nouseforaname
Summary: Dom isn’t a fan of taking painkillers. Darlene finds out why when the redhead is admitted to the hospital after getting hurt on the job.
Relationships: Darlene Alderson/Dominique DiPierro
Series: Recovery Mode [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1625374
Comments: 1
Kudos: 35





	Heavenly

“No, Elliot.” Darlene grits her teeth. She’s holding her phone so tight she just might be able to crush it with her bare hand. “You  have  to get her to take it. Don’t fucking leave until she does.”

“I can’t make her.” Her brother sighs as she hops up the subway steps two at a time. “If she doesn’t want the morphine, she doesn’t have to take it.”

“But she  _ needs _ it.” Darlene nearly collides with a mom pushing her stroller down the sidewalk. “Okay, can you just…explain what happened again? I need to make sense of all of this.”

“There was a shootout.” Elliot sighs again.

“Since when did hippies start carrying guns?” Darlene hisses, but Elliot ignores her and wearily continues with his explanation.

“She caught a bullet in her side and it broke up inside of her, so there was a bit of internal bleeding, but no major damage to internal organs or anything. She also fell out of a window and landed on some glass - but the window was on the first floor, so there wasn’t any serious damage from the fall.”

“Jesus fucking-” Darlene feels her anxiety spike; she breathes in deep and mentally counts to ten. When she finishes, she speaks up again. “How did you know about the shootout?”

“People in the office told me.”

Darlene sucks in another breath. “So…the surgery’s all done?”

“Yeah, she got out of it not too long ago. Everything went fine; they got all of the bullet fragments and glass out. She’s a bit groggy from the anesthesia but she’s conscious enough to say no to the morphine.”

“She got shot and fell out of a fucking window.” Darlene hisses. “She’s probably in a lot of pain.”

“C’mon, you know Dom can handle it.” She can hear something rustling on Elliot’s end, along with a few unfamiliar voices murmuring in the background. “Didn’t you say she refused drugs when she got that chest injury?”

“Yeah, and that was one of the stupidest fucking things she’s ever done.” Darlene grumbles as she accidentally shoulders an incoming jogger. “She’s got this weird aversion to any kind of medicine. She won’t even take an Advil if she has a headache.”

“Some people just don’t mix well with medication.” Elliot has been annoyingly nonchalant this entire call. “She doesn’t seem to be in a lot of pain. I think she’ll be fine.”

“Of course she doesn’t  seem like it. She pretends it doesn’t hurt when it’s so obvious that it does - trust me, I know her.” Darlene finally approaches the front doors to the emergency room, storming through the sliding doors and heading towards reception. “I’m here now.”

She hangs up and runs a hand through her hair, looking left and right before pulling off her heart-shaped sunglasses and resigning to the closest chair. Her knee is frantically bouncing as she keeps her eyes trained on the doors to the emergency room, swallowing hard when she catches a glimpse of a gurney or a nurse pushing someone around in a wheelchair. She hates hospitals so fucking much; she’s never had a positive experience in one. Who actually has a good time in a hospital anyway? People only come here when there’s something wrong with them. It’s not the place you want to go to just for kicks.

When Elliot finally emerges through the doors, Darlene leaps to her feet and bounds over to him, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him as tight as humanely possible. She can feel his hand awkwardly patting the back of her shoulder. “She’s okay.” He says when she finally pulls away from him. He looks tired, and his shirt is wrinkled. “She’s stuck in the ER for tonight but they’re gonna move her to a separate room tomorrow morning.”

“But the morphine.” Darlene insists, and Elliot sighs.

“I told her that if she doesn’t take it, you’ll come over and push her out of another window before killing her yourself. That seemed to convince her.”

She can feel a little bit of the pressure in her chest lifting. “See, all you had to do was threaten her. It’s not that hard.” She swallows again, looking past his shoulder towards the doors. “Is she asleep, then?”

“Yeah, they just gave her the morphine.” Elliot rubs the back of his neck. “She’s probably gonna be out for a few hours. Maybe we should-”

“I’m staying here.” Darlene’s eyes harden.

Elliot looks like he wants to say something else, but when he meets eyes with her, he seems to come to an understanding, and he nods. “Okay.” He briefly glances over his shoulder. “She’s in the farthest bed towards the back. I saved a chair for you.”

“Thanks.” She drops her eyes to her boots. “You didn’t have to skip work for this. Just calling me was more than enough.”

“Hey.” She glances back up at him; he’s giving her a small, reassuring smile. “She’s important to me too. She’s family.” He reaches out to squeeze her arm. “Did you do what you needed to do?”

It takes a second for her to figure out what he’s talking about. “Leon said he can handle it on his own, but even if he couldn’t do it I’d push it to another day anyway. She’s way more important than a bunch of internet pervs.”

Elliot frowns. “You know, if you need me, I can-”

“I already said no to the first fifty times you offered, and I’m not going to change my answer any time soon.” Darlene glares at him. “You’re  not putting your job on the line for me, okay? I have this under control. I’ll be fine.” She sighs and places a hand over her brother’s. “You should go home and rest. I’ll take it from here.” She shakes her head. “Not even a month into the new year and I’m already in a fucking hospital. I’m getting some serious déjà vu.”

“Well, at least Dom didn’t blow up a power plant.” Elliot chuckles.

“Doesn’t matter.” She mutters. “I’m gonna yell at her like she blew up a million power plants.”

“Take it easy on her; she’s been through a lot today.” Elliot shakes his head with amusement. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

The siblings share one last hug. Once Elliot’s gone, Darlene dashes through the doors and navigates through the maze of beds and curtains until she stops by the bed at the farthest corner of the room. She can feel a lump forming in her throat as she steps closer, and when she reaches out to slowly draw the curtain back, her pale eyes widen when she spots the unconscious redhead lying before her.

Dom is fast asleep with her head lolled to the side. An intravenous tube is sticking out of her right arm, connected to a bag of what she presumes is the painkillers that’s keeping her sedated. A nasal cannula is running across her cheekbones and into her nostrils. Her forearms and palms are swathed in white bandages. There’s another large bandage stuck to the corner of her forehead, and there are a few smaller cuts on the left side of her face. The heart rate monitor sitting next to the bag of medicine is showing a slow but steady pulse.

She instantly thinks back to the night she kneeled over the redhead in Angela’s apartment, biting her lip to hold back her tears as she pressed down on her chest in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding. She knows that Dom’s current injuries aren’t as serious as the one from that night, but she feels the same sense of urgency, the same panic that washed over her when that knife first broke through her skin and plunged into her chest cavity. It’s the same kind of anxiety that shot through her point blank when she sat in the back of that car and watched Santiago knock her out in the FBI’s underground parking garage, the same fear that plagued her when Dom left the barn and came back much later with blood splattered on her face and clothes. She detests the idea of Dom getting hurt; the thought of her going through any sort of pain, physical or otherwise, makes her feel like there’s a weight sinking into her chest. It’s hard to breathe. She can’t think clearly. All she wants to do is cry.

Darlene pulls up the chair Elliot set aside for her and sheds her jacket and backpack. Her eyes are trained on one of Dom’s hands but she’s too afraid to reach out. All she wants to do is touch her, to squeeze her hand and physically feel that she’s okay, but she doesn’t know the specifics of her injuries and she doesn’t want to risk causing more pain. She swallows hard as the tears blur everything in front of her, but she quickly shuts her eyes and shakes her head to rid herself of her stupidity. Dom isn’t dying, she’s no longer in any kind of danger. She’s here, alive, lying right next to her, and she’s going to be okay. Dom’s going to be fine.

She breathes in deep as she leans back against the stiff, tiny chair. The drugs will keep Dom dormant for awhile, so she might as well try and get some sleep too. It’s been a long day, and she spent the majority of it scrambling halfway across the entire goddamn city just to get here. She wants to be fully alert and attentive when Dom wakes up - plus, the sleep will probably help quell some of the anxiety.

The chair’s uncomfortable as hell, but Darlene is so exhausted from worrying over Dom and rushing over here that it doesn’t take long for her to fall asleep. The beeping of the redhead’s heart monitor lulls her into a deep, black void, and she slips away easily, almost as if she was given an intravenous full of morphine too.

* * *

Darlene stirs, groaning as she straightens up in her seat. She stretches in a vain attempt to alleviate the soreness in her back and neck, but the pain persists, and she shakes her head before raking a hand through her hair. She checks her phone for the time; she’d somehow been asleep for nearly three hours.

When she pockets her phone, a raspy, quiet voice cuts through the air, and she immediately glances towards the bed. Dom’s eyes are still closed, but her head is moving a little. It sounds like she’s trying to speak, but the strained noises coming out of her mouth are incoherent.

“Dom?” Darlene moves to sit on the edge of the bed, leaning forward a little to brush the red hair away from her face. Dom is mumbling something, but she can’t make out what she’s trying to say.

After a few more seconds of indistinguishable noises, Dom finally utters something that Darlene can understand. It’s in a voice so low, so quiet, that she thought she imagined it at first.

“Dead.”

Darlene draws back a little, furrowing her brow. Well, that’s awfully cryptic, and not exactly what she wanted or expected to hear. “What?”

“Dead.” Dom mumbles again. Her eyes gradually flutter half-open, bleary and unfocused; her pupils are frantically searching the room. “Dead…I’m dead.”

Darlene doesn’t really know how to approach this. “Uh,” She blinks as Dom continues to repeat herself. “No, you’re very much alive.”

“That’s impossible.” Dom’s words are heavy and slurred with morphine. “I’m dead. There’s...no way I’m alive right...now.”

Maybe she should just play along to see where this goes. “Why do you say that?”

Dom’s eyes finally stop shifting around. They lock onto Darlene’s, and she’s staring at her with such intensity that for a second Darlene is wondering if the morphine is actually doing its job. “‘Cause...you’re here.”

This is making less sense by the second. “Why would you be dead if I’m here? Wouldn’t that make me dead too?”

“No, stupid.” Dom groans. “You can’t be dead.”

Maybe the morphine is doing its job a little  _ too _ well. “How can we be talking if you’re dead and I’m not?”

“Don’tchu get it?” Dom is trying her best to glare at her, but it looks more like she’s squinting. “Me.” She languidly raises a bandaged arm and pats herself on the chest. “Dead.”

“Yeah, I got that part.”

“You.” Dom points at her. “You’re here...to take me...up to heaven. Tha...that’s how I know I’m dead.”

Darlene snorts. “Wait, so you think I’m, like, the grim reaper or something?”

“No.” Dom rolls her eyes. “You’re an angel, silly.”

Darlene laughs out of disbelief. Elliot was right after all - some people don’t mix well with medication, and Dom is definitely one of them. “What?”

“It...it makes total sense.” The redhead insists. “I can’t...I can’t be alive, ‘cause you’re here - and if you’re here...that means...that means you’re here to...to take me to heaven.” She scoffs. “What kind of angel are you? Can’t even...do your job properly. Geez Louise.”

“How are you so sure that I’m an angel?”

Dom suddenly bursts into a fit of obnoxious laughter, and Darlene backs away a bit in surprise. “You’re kidding, right? What kinda dumb question is that?” She shakes her head. “No one  _ that _ hot-” She gestures towards Darlene with a hand. “-can be just some regular ol’ human being. Humans are gross. Angels are perfect, and  _ you’re _ perfect, so you’re an angel. Duh. Do the math, Einstein.”

Forcing Dom to take morphine is the best decision she’s ever made. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but I’m not an angel, and I’m not here to take you up to heaven.”

“That’s  exactly what an angel would say.” Dom rolls her eyes. “Tryna trick me to...to come with you.” She shoots her a glare. “Well, guess what? I ain’t goin’.”

Darlene laughs again. “Why not?”

“‘Cause I can’t.” Dom shrugs. “My girlfriend...would be  _ so _ pissed if I went.”

“So,” Darlene is having a tremendous amount of difficulty holding in her laughter. “The only reason why you can’t die is because you’re afraid of pissing your girlfriend off?”

“Have you  _ met _ my girlfriend?” Dom is incredulous - well, as incredulous as one could be under the influence of morphine. “She’d challenge God and Satan to a three-way knife fight in a back alley...and  _win._ She probably already did it, like, seven times or something.”

Darlene isn’t sure if she should be flattered. “She sounds scary.”

“She’s the...the scariest person on the planet, and she’s kinda crazy, but I love her.” Dom’s eyes are suddenly downcast. “I love her so much.” Her voice starts to crack a bit, like she’s on the verge of tears. “I love her more than anything in this whole wide world.”

Darlene feels like her heart might explode. “Dom…”

“She’s my...my everything. I’m in love with her and…and I need her.” Dom bites her bottom lip, and Darlene swallows hard. “Maybe you won’t get it ‘cause angels...angels are too good for feelings...b-but I love my girlfriend  _ so  _ much, and I can’t go to a place that...that doesn’t have her in it.”

She didn’t expect this conversation to become so heartfelt. “Is she really worth staying for? I mean, this place can be kinda shitty sometimes. Isn’t heaven supposed to be perfect? Wouldn’t you rather be there instead?”

Dom rolls her eyes. “There you go with your angel Jedi mind tricks again. I’m tellin’ ya - that ain’t gonna...gonna work on me, bub. I can see right through you.” She throws her head back against the bed. “I promised my girlfriend that...that I wouldn’t go anywhere without her. I don’t want to break that promise. I...I broke promises I made to her before, and I made her cry, and it was  _the worst.”_ She groans. “I hate making my girlfriend cry. I don’t wanna make her cry anymore.”

A lump suddenly forms in Darlene’s throat. “You don’t?”

“No siree bob.” Dom clumsily shakes her head. “There’s nothing worse than making your girlfriend cry - and trust me, I know. I’ve been stabbed in the chest once and I just got shot-” She pauses to push the bed covers away, and when she starts to lift up her hospital gown, presumably to show off the bandage covering her bullet wound, Darlene hastily lunges forward to stop her.

“You don’t need to show me.” She gently places her hands on the redhead’s and pries them off her gown before pulling the covers back over her lap. Just  knowing Dom was shot is harrowing enough for her; she’s pretty sure she’ll go into cardiac arrest if she sees physical proof of it.

“I’m, like, this FBI agent, so I get, like…stabbed and shot and stuff a lot.” Dom casually explains, and Darlene can feel her anxiety creeping back up again. The redhead suddenly straightens up, her eyes widening with excitement. “Omigod - okay, so, this one time, I was chasing this guy - I forgot why I was chasing him but he prolly did somethin’ bad or whatever - and I wasn’t looking where I was going, and I got hit by a-”

“Don’t need to hear that.” Darlene firmly cuts in. If she hears one more story about Dom getting seriously hurt she’s definitely going to have a heart attack. “I know you’re an FBI agent, and I know it’s a dangerous job. I’m sure you have a lot of interesting stories, but you don’t really need to go into detail.”

Dom scoffs at her. “Psh,  _ boring. _ Are all angels as boring as you?”

How much morphine did the nurse give her? “I’m  not  an angel. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“Whatever. You’re boring.” The redhead dismissively waves a hand in her direction. “Anyways, my point is that none of that sucks as much as watching my girlfriend cry and knowing I hurt her.” Dom turns to squint at her again. “Y’know, you prolly think you’re so high an’ mighty ‘cause you’re this hot ass angel who’s too good for feelings and girlfriends, but you’re missin’ out. Sometimes...sometimes it can be really hard, especially when you suck at life like I do, but man, having a girlfriend is pretty friggin’ sweet. I’m the luckiest person in...in the whole world, ‘cause I got the best girlfriend ever, and she’s  _ mine,  _ so you can’t have her. Sucks for you.”

Darlene’s laugh is humourless. “I don’t know if she’s the  best. That’s a pretty strong word.”

“She  _ is _ the best.” Dom fights back. “She’s, like, this super smart computer wizard. She can do anything with a computer, like...stuff I didn’t even think was possible. It’s like magic. My girlfriend makes magic happen on computers, no big deal or anything.” Just as Darlene opens her mouth to say it  isn’t  magic and that there are tons of people who know how to code, Dom speaks up again. “The reason why she’s not here right now is ‘cause she’s busy saving the world with her magic computer powers. She actually helped her brother save the world once, but she’s doing it again on her own ‘cause she’s a freakin’ badass.” She takes a quick glance around the room. “Don’t tell anyone though, ‘cause it’s sp’osed to be a secret.”

Darlene shakes her head with amusement. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

Dom flashes her a dopey grin. “She’s a huge nerd and I know you’re sp’osed to beat up nerds but she’s the cool kind of nerd, and she’s using her nerd magic to save the world again, so it’s okay - a-and she’s pretty. She’s _so_ pretty. Man, you gotta see her. She’s so pretty that when you look at her you’ll wanna just start cryin’ all over the place ‘cause you dunno what else to do. Sometimes I just look at...look at her, and it kinda...feels like the world just... stops,  y’know? It’s like everything just falls away and it’s just her and...she’s the only thing that exists. That’s how pretty my girlfriend is.”

Darlene can feel her eyes stinging with the threat of incoming tears. Who knew that an FBI agent pumped full of morphine would be the first thing that makes her cry in the new year? “You really think that?”

“I don’t just  _ think _ it - I  _ know  _ it. She’s the bestest.” Dom looks like she’s trying to smirk but...well, Darlene really isn’t sure  _ what  _ she’s trying to do with her mouth. “She...she tells me good morning every day before I go to work, and she always reminds me to eat and to get a good night’s rest. She has trouble sleeping when I work late ‘cause she worries about me, and that makes me really sad, so I always call her to say I love her lots and that I’m okay, and that she can sleep now ‘cause I’ll be home soon.” Dom’s expression is half-dazed, half-smug. “She loves me  so  much that she almost got arrested ‘cause she didn’t want to leave me when I got stabbed.” She pauses for a second. “She didn’t stab me, by the way; it was this evil bitch who likes to play with dead animals or something. She was crazy - but that’s, like, this whole other story. Anyways,  that’s  how much my girlfriend loves me, and that’s why she’s the best. How many other girlfriends can say they’ve done  that?”

Darlene scoffs as the stinging in her eyes intensifies. “Maybe there aren’t a lot out there who can say they’ve done that, but I’m sure there are plenty who are still a million times better.”

“Nuh uh - no one can love someone as much as  my  girlfriend loves me. The facts say it all.” Dom replies indignantly. “Maybe  you don’t think she’s perfect ‘cause you’re a benevolent celestial servant of God or whatever-”

“You don’t remember who I am, but you remember that angels are benevolent celestial servants of God?” Darlene raises an eyebrow, but Dom plows on as if she didn’t hear her.

“-but she’s perfect for  _ me_ _.”_ The redhead thumps her chest with a hand. Her eyes drift around the room again as a hazy, distant smile stretches wide across her lips. “Don’tcha see? Heaven isn’t a place. Heaven is a person. Heaven is when you look at her and...you still feel kinda nervous inside even though you’ve looked at her a bazillion, gajillion times before and already know what she looks like. Heaven...heaven is when she smiles at you and you feel like you’re kinda floating a bit and you forget what words are. Heaven is when she says she loves you even though you’re a big, dumb, stupid jerk who can’t do anything right, and-”

Affection quickly floods Darlene’s insides. This banged up, blathering idiot is holding her whole fucking heart in her bandaged hands and she’s too fucked up to realize it. She hates her, she hates her  so much - but, oh, she loves her. She loves her so much it hurts; it’s a throbbing echo that ripples through every inch of her, an ache that hums so loud it rattles her bones. She burns so brightly for her that she swears she glows; the adoration she holds for her is a beacon that cuts through the dreary, murky darkness she’s been drowning in for the majority of her life. It illuminates the darkest corners of herself, seeping into the deepest crevices and finally allowing her to see that she is worth loving after all, even if there are parts of her that she can’t stand, even if there are parts of her that thrive in the shadows. She wants to bask in Dom’s warmth forever; she wants to cling to her light, to hold it close and allow herself to melt into it completely. She wants to get lost in it, to be consumed by it, to seamlessly integrate with it so that she can’t tell where she ends and it begins.

Unable to contain herself any longer, Darlene swiftly leans in to cut her off with a kiss, but the moment is quickly ruined when Dom promptly shoves her off. “What the hell, Dom-”

“Don’t  _ what the hell _ me.” The redhead is squinting/glaring at her again. “I told you I have a girlfriend. D’you really think I’d just...fly off into the sunset with you ‘cause you’re this, like, super hot angel or something?”

“Oh my God.” Darlene buries her face in her hands, heaving a sigh before lifting her head to glare back at her while jabbing a thumb to her own chest. “Dom - it’s me, Darlene.”

“Darlene?” Dom slowly raises her eyebrows. “That’s  _ so  _ weird. My girlfriend has the same name as you. Is...is this another angel trick?”

“No,” Darlene huffs, clearly annoyed, but a part of her still feels like laughing. “I’m actually your girlfriend.”

Dom is quiet for a few seconds, her brow crinkling as she sinks deeper into her own thoughts. Darlene patiently sits next to her, watching her intently; after a few more seconds, the redhead’s expression lights up, and she makes eye contact with her again. “Oh,” She gasps as her voice cracks and her eyes glaze over with tears. “Oh...oh my God.”

Darlene is instantly overcome with worry. “What?” She raises her hands to frame Dom’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Dom clasps Darlene’s wrists with her own hands. The tears trickle down her cheeks as she laughs quietly to herself. “It all makes sense now.” She whispers excitedly, and Darlene’s worry quickly morphs into confusion.

“What does?”

Dom laughs again as she shakes her head in disbelief. “My girlfriend’s been an angel  _this whole time.”_ She’s still whispering, like she’s spilling an incredibly juicy secret.

Darlene leans back, staring at her like she just asked her a very difficult algebra question. “Wait, what?”

“My girlfriend is scary, a-and angels…they’re kinda scary.” Dom wipes her tears away with the back of her hand. “Angels are too good for feelings, and my girlfriend kinda acts like she’s too good for feelings sometimes - but I know she feels stuff ‘cause she’s, like, always mad at me for some reason. Angels are also sp’osed to be beautiful, and my girlfriend’s, like, literally the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen on this whole entire earth, so…” Dom quickly raises her arms, and it nearly scares Darlene to death because it looked like she was going to accidentally yank out her intravenous. “That’s gotta mean that my girlfriend  _ is _ an angel, right?” She grabs Darlene’s face with her bandaged hands, pulling her close enough so that their foreheads are touching. “You are… _ so _ beautiful. I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out sooner.” Her eyes well up again as she bites her bottom lip. “Why didn’t you tell me you were an angel? Were you not allowed to? Did God tell you to keep it a secret?”

Darlene has no idea how to answer this. “I…” She begins to panic when she spots more tears streaming down Dom’s face. “Dom, I’m not an-”

Dom lovingly strokes the side of Darlene’s face with one of her hands. “You are the scariest, nerdiest, most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid my eyes on. I love you.”

This is simultaneously the strangest  and best compliment she’s ever received. “I love you too,” Darlene laughs as Dom continues to cry while desperately holding onto her face; she’s holding onto her so tight that it’s actually starting to hurt a little. “But seriously, Dom - why the fuck are you crying?”

“You love me?” Dom sniffles.

“I do.” Darlene reassures her with a smile, but it’s immediately wiped off her face when Dom suddenly breaks into a fit of tears, crying even harder than she was before. “Oh, God. Dom, c’mon-”

“How could you love someone like me?” Dom sobs, and Darlene gulps. “You’re so perfect, and I’m just garbage. I’m a giant, rotting, smelly garbage dump of a human being and you’re, like, this perfect, beautiful angel that’s so good and amazing and...” She sniffles loudly, running the back of her hand across her face. “I don’t deserve you. I’m a walking, talking garbage can that’s also on fire.”

“I really think it’s the other way around.” Darlene mumbles.

“Nuh uh.” Dom protests. “You’re just so beautiful, and perfect, and I just love you so much. You always remind me that I need to take care of myself, and you tell me when I’m working too hard...and...and when I feel like I’m garbage and I don’t deserve nice things, you tell me that I’m important and I deserve nice things, and oh-” She pauses to sloppily wipe her tears away; her bandages are getting wet and Darlene briefly worries about whether or not those need to be changed now. “-I know I make you mad a lot but I just want, I just...I just want you to know I’m trying really hard to not make you so mad all the time. I know you’re mad ‘cause you care.”

That was a little difficult to hear. Darlene swallows again and shakes her head. “You make it  really hard to not be mad sometimes, but you’re right. I care about you, and I care a whole lot. You’re not garbage. You’re...you’re really good to me. You’re good  _ for  _ me, and that’s why I need you.” She swallows and breaks eye contact for a moment. “I just worry about you. I show it in weird ways, but I actually worry about you a lot, Dom. I hate seeing you like this. I don’t like it when you get hurt.” She sighs. “I know getting injured on the job can’t be avoided sometimes, but I just want you to come back to me in one piece when you finish work for the day.”

That seemed to set her off again. Dom squeezes her eyes shut and chokes on a sob. “Oh, Darlene,” She blubbers. “I promise I’ll try to not make you worry so much. I’ll try really hard. You know I’m always gonna come back to you, right? I promised you I would.”

Darlene can feel her eyes stinging again. “I know, but I still worry anyway.”

“You’re the most perfect, most important, most amazing thing in the whole entire world to me. I promise I’ll try harder so you don’t have to worry.” The redhead sniffles, but just as she raises her hand to wipe her face again, Darlene stops her and brushes her tears away herself. “You mean so much to me, Darlene. You’re, like, this tiny, angry, little chihuahua with wings that yells at me all the time.” Dom sniffles as she moves in to kiss both of Darlene’s cheeks. “My beautiful, tiny, angry, chihuahua angel.”

And just like that, the moment is ruined again. “A chihuahua?” Darlene quirks en eyebrow. “Really? Out of  all the animals you could’ve compared me to-”

“I just love you a whole lot and I don’t know what to do.” Dom shakes her head. “There’s so much, and I can’t hold all of it.”

“So much of what?”

“Love.” Dom hiccups. “I can’t hold all my love for you in just my own two hands. It’s…it’s spilling everywhere, and I can’t pick it up.” Her breath hitches in her throat as she continues to cry. “It’s all over the place, Darlene. I don’t know how to hold all of it. I don’t have enough hands. Why do I have so much love but not enough hands to hold all of it? It’s not fair. Why can’t I be a spider, or an octopus, or a centipede, or something? They have so many hands. They’d be able to hold all of it, I think.”

Darlene is pretty sure she’s going to start crying soon from how hard she’s laughing. “You are  _ so _ fucking weird when you’re fucked up. You need to be like this all the time.”

Dom furrows her brow. “What?”

“Nothing.” Darlene leans in to kiss her again, and thankfully Dom doesn’t push her away this time. “Thanks for calling me every time you work late, by the way.” She murmurs against her mouth. “It always makes me feel better.”

“Wow.” Dom’s eyes are comically wide when Darlene pulls away from her; she clearly didn’t listen to a single word she just said. “Yeah, you’re  definitely an angel. Humans do  _ not _ kiss like that.”

Darlene is too amused to be annoyed. “I’m gonna miss you when the morphine wears off.” 

“Can you kiss me again?” Dom nudges the end of her nose with her own.

“Why?”

Dom’s smile is sheepish. “‘Cause I like it.”

Darlene rolls her eyes and laughs before leaning in to kiss her a third time. When they pull apart, Dom is whispering again. “Do you think God’s mad at me ‘cause I fell in love with an angel?”

Darlene chuckles and shakes her head. “If God’s mad, I’m pretty sure we would’ve found out a long time ago.” She kicks her feet up and scoots back so that she’s sitting next to her before throwing an arm around her shoulders.

Dom leans into her, closing her eyes as she presses her cheek against her shoulder. “Is God mad at me ‘cause I had sex with an angel?” She pauses for a second, her eyes shifting left and right to check if the coast is clear. “We did it lotsa times - like ...I mean,  _ a lot.  _ I think we did it a billion times. Maybe a billion and one times.”

“No,” Darlene laughs again. “I don’t think so.”

“Good.” Dom yawns. “‘Cause angel sex is, like… really good. I don’t think I can go back to normal sex now.”

Darlene shakes her head. “How is it different?”

“It’s just loads better. You gotta take my word for it. Angels really know what they’re doin’ down there, if y’know what I mean.” The redhead yawns again as Darlene threads her fingers through her hair. “Are you sure this isn’t another trick to get me to go to heaven with you?”

“I assure you, it isn’t.” Darlene chuckles. “We’re staying right here.”

“‘Kay.” Dom sighs. “Just checking.” She breathes in deep as Darlene continues to stroke her hair. “Tell God I’m sorry that I can’t die yet. I’m not going anywhere without my girlfriend. I promised her.”

“Dom, for the last time, I’m not-” Darlene glances down at her; Dom’s nestled against her side, one bandaged arm thrown around her waist, eyes closed, and breathing steadily. Her heart melts, and she sighs before raising a hand to wipe the last of the tears away from Dom’s face before tightening her arms around her. “You are so fucking stupid,” She rests her cheek against Dom’s dumb red hair. “But I still love you, asshole.”

Dom hums against her skin. “Love you too. Please stay with me forever and ever, amen.”

“Do you always get weirdly religious when you’re on drugs?”

“Religious?” Dom scoffs. “Ew. Who am I, my mom?”

Darlene shifts around a bit to make herself more comfortable, huffing indignantly. “How am I a chihuahua?”

“Puny. Yappy. Angry.” Dom mumbles. “Overprotective. Wants to fight everyone. Easy to pick up. Doesn’t get along with kids or other dogs. Gets cold easily. Not very fluffy, but still cute. Sorta twitchy when nervous or excited. Always yelling-”

Darlene rolls her eyes. “Okay, I get the picture.”

“Shut your beautiful chihuahua angel mouth now - I’m sleepy.” Dom yawns as she nuzzles her head against her shoulder. She’s fast asleep in seconds, breathing slow and deep, mouth slightly agape, drooling on Darlene’s shirt.

Darlene heaves a sigh and tightens her arm around the redhead’s shoulders. She’s still pretty exhausted, but she doesn’t feel like sleeping just yet. She turns her head and keeps her eyes trained on Dom, smiling to herself as she continues to stroke her hair. She pays special attention to how soft her red strands feel between her fingers, and how she faintly smells like disinfectant and fresh bandages. Dom is warm and steady against her; she’s real, she exists, she’s here to stay, she’s okay - and that’s all Darlene ever wanted to know, but the whole morphine mishap came with the added benefit of having a great story to embarrass Dom with later on, so she can’t help but feel like she came away with an extra win today.

Dom’s head is heavy against her shoulder; she’s out cold, and she probably won’t wake up for another few hours, but all Darlene wants to do is just watch her. It’s almost like she’s afraid that if she closes her eyes or looks away, she’ll somehow vanish and she’ll never see her again. She lies in bed next to her, holding her close, eyes patiently focused on the dozing redhead. The heart monitor is a slow lull in the background, and the clock on the wall seems to be crawling forward, but she doesn’t mind. She’s perfectly content with staying here and watching her sleep. She’ll do this for as long as she needs to.

So that’s exactly what she does.


End file.
